


war is rolling on the horizon

by visheretowrite



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 05:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11479677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visheretowrite/pseuds/visheretowrite
Summary: war affects everyone differentlysix thoughts about war





	war is rolling on the horizon

_**i.**_   _ **sammy**_

War, in its beginning, had looked like black and white photographs of men, propped up next to each other, trading barrels of gunpowder, leaning against a tree, smiling amiably. War had looked like bright lights and vivid colors on posters, seducing young men to their deaths, Posters, that, in their own way, are the modern sirens of the seas. War looks like shiny brass buckles and crisp lines of a uniform, hope strewn over faces and tight grips on guns, the only piece that gave away true fear. War looks like something glorious, something amazing and noble, something worth fighting for. Sammy had watched the young men as they marched off to battle, so confident and so full of life.

War, in all its atrocity, is the sight of bodies strewn over a battlefield, the sight of blood and more blood staining the ground, turning it from green to a sort of black that can never be washed out, a sort of permanent stain that splatters on the soul of all those around him, the sight of young men murdering and wounding each other. He cannot hope to reconcile that image of young men with the imagine that is in front of him right now, the image of those bright young men with the torn bodies and blood that seems to cover every part of the battle field, haunt him. The spray of blood he witnesses as a bullet tears through the body of another innocent boy seems to stain the back of his eyelids, cursed to see it forever.

War looks like stones under flower strewn graves, bright colors that don’t really seem appropriate for the situation. Yellows, blues, purples, pinks, and reds [how can it be red, the same red that covers the hands of young men, that we mourn other lives with-there is some cruel irony in that, Sammy finds], stain his eyelids ever when he closes them, bright spots that dance in his vision. War had looked like bright blue eyes accepting their destiny, bright blue eyes that had always been steady and confident. Sammy cannot, like the bodies on the battlefield, reconcile those bright blue eyes with something that war as awful as. He cannot accept it, because even in the end, Steve had always looked so steady, and war had always looked chaotic. Sammy no longer can decipher the truth in the expression of men and woman, something he could once to at a glance, because he cannot decipher his own.

War, when he thinks about it years later, had looked like a goddess with hair streaming behind her, fighting the good fight. He blinks back the tears; he does not know where she is now, but the sight of her had helped him and so many more. War, always, had looked like Diana, had looked like a force of nature, something otherworldly, and too powerful. Something not good, but something great and terrible. Sammy realizes that no one can unsee the damages of war, but how he wishes that he could, oh how he wishes that he might scrub away at the images prints on his eyes. Sammy closes his eyes, because he is so very tired of looking at the world around him and seeing nothing more than all the vestiges of war. He wants to see the world around him for what it is, not all the bad things it could be. [In the end, war still haunts him, and it is all he can do to look at the world and not see people ravaged by it.]

 _ **ii.**_   _ **charlie**_

War sounded like fanfare and glory, shouts of joy and happiness that he had witnessed has a young boy, cries mingled with laughter. War had almost sounded melodious, the steady marching of soldiers, boots hitting the pavement giving Charlie a sort of peace. That was how he decided what he had wanted to do when he grew up, defend his country at whatever the cost. Charlie closes his eyes, makes himself devoid of everything else but of the glorious sounds of war, of the patriotic songs that accompany the sounds of people coming home, the ones he commits to memory, in order to sing to his family when he comes home. Charlie loves music, he truly does, and all he wants to do is sing, as he knows the joy music can bring. But he also loves his people, and he needs to fight in the war to protect them. He’ll pick up music when he comes home.

War sounds like a thud and a thump, as the body he had been aiming for hits the ground, crimson liquid spread around from the hole in the center of the body. [Better to think of the targets as bodies that were waiting to be felled.] War sounds like the bang of a gun that haunts him in his dreams, screams that tear themselves from the hollow of his throats. Charlie covers his ears and whimpers in bed, too much, too much, too much. He curls in on himself, if only to avoid the screaming that reverberates in his ear. War never leaves his brain, not truly. Screams claw their way from his throat and cause him to toss and turn at night, hold him in their vise-like grip and torture him.

War had never sounded peaceful. War sounds like screams torn from Veld. But then it sounds like the laughter ripped away from the cruelty of the officers and handed back to the people, saving a village that needed more saving that he had thought possible. He hears the comforting sound of a voice that accompanies blue, blue eyes, and he knows that war does not sound happy. But Charlie also knows that if he can make music in the time of war, that is like crushing the screams to dust beneath his dirtied boot. So he rests his fingertips over the keyboard, and for the first time in countless years, lets the constant screams that accompany him be drowned out. He plays music and allows himself the drown in the music that had accompanied a childhood where life was much simpler. [After all, we all become children again at least once in our lives. Why not in the middle of war?]

War, he realizes, as he [finally] sets down his rifle, sounded like the determined yell of a woman, sounded like the defiant shout she let out as she refused to let the world beat her again. War sounded like the thud of feet as they sunk into the sound, the pounding as they rush towards the village. Charlie closes his eyes, in the end, like he had when he was a little boy, and lets the sounds wash over him once more. That low voice that had conforted them all,the voice that has spoken with such passion, is gone now, and he cannot seem to bear it. It is like losing his ability to sing all over again. [He finds it again, when he finds a picture of him and Steve, and remembers that all Steve wanted was to hear his music again. After that, the screams fade from his ears as he only allows himself to hear his music.]

 _ **iii.**_   _ **etta**_

War, at first, tastes like the ice cream they sell on the side of the road. For whatever reason, she cannot remember, but all she knows, as she waits on the platform with her mother, in suspense for her father to return home, is that if this is what war tastes like, she hopes it will come soon. Etta wipes away the ice cream smeared on her chin, leaving it sticky as her mother scolds her, licking her fingers as she waits for her father, with bright eyes and soft hair, to return. War tastes like sweetness and sugar, leaving her lips and fingers wet as she licks them once more, determined to get the last vestiges of ice cream off.

War, she realizes as she grows up, is the exact opposite of all these things. War tastes like bitter, dry coffee. War tastes disgusting, all rations diverted to the war effort, factories that originally made beautiful candies repossessed for bombs and gun making, ones that will soon tear through the bodies of young men and women, factories that will make papers that will deprive children of mothers and fathers, mothers of sons and daughters. [Etta cannot help but think that this is just another sign of a life tainted by the war, another sign of sanity slipping away, how war is all pervasive.] War makes her food tasteless, and she cannot eat while thinking of the young men dying. She cannot bear the thought of these young men’s last meal being dry crackers that crumble in her mouth, while officers in shiny brass buckles feast and decide their fate.

War tastes like the bile rising up in the back of her throat, as she chokes back down the images of bloodless faces being carried in a line, still and unmoving in coffins. She herself is the one who receives the letter on the dry paper she had so dreaded, and she chokes, tosses the letter to the side, rushes to the bathroom, and throws up, the taste of vomit hanging in her mouth. War tastes exactly as it should, awful and pungent, tangy and bitter. She washes her mouth, and yet realizes in her haste to empty her stomach of her lunch, that he cheek now bleeds. She runs her tongue over the abused skin, lets the tangy, copper like taste of blood settle on her tongue and decides she prefers it that way. [It may or may not have something to do with the letter bearing his name that sits on her desk, as he had met a fate that was the worst thing she could think of.]

She ponders what war tastes like now. All she can remember is war tasting like the cucumber on the sandwiches that she let sit on her tongue, the sweetness and the granules of the sugar she savored, scarce in wartime. But most of all, she remembers the taste of war as the warm, comforting tea she shared with a goddess, with one of the brightest smiles she had ever seen. Etta felt like she was dumpy next to her, and yet, it was an honor to introduce Diana to the world. And as she felt that bright smile directed at her, for the first time, Etta tastes the tea, and she no longer feels as completely alone. Etta has acquaintances, sure, but Steve was the closest she had to a friend. [And in the end, as she shares more tea with Diana, sugar sweet on the edge of her tongue, she realizes that Diana has become her friend, becoming Steve for her, she swallows the piece a little easier.]

 _ **iv.**_   _ **chief**_

War smells like death, which is fitting. The pungent scent of rotting bodies sickens him, as the stench floats into his nose, as he sees the men, the boys, he grew up with, slaughtered on the field, simply because white men wanted their land for themselves. [In the end, isn’t war all about taking, taking, taking? War does nothing more than take.] He walks slowly among the bodies, and smell of burning flesh is pervasive in his his every move. He watches as they burn dispose of his people, so they can build their ugly houses on this land, this land they have no respect for. He was lucky enough to get away, he knows that. And yet the smell of war, of burning bodies, of copper stained blood, of gunpowder, remains in his dreams for years.

Now, war smells like the wares he smuggles over the lines, for young men. The smell of gunpowder no longer sickens him, as it once had. War smells too much like gunpowder mixed in with freshly drenched earth to affect him now. Gunpowder that remains on dead bodies, even after they’ve been riddled with bullets. The sick feeling lodges in his stomach, as he hands young men what might be the last piece of happiness they ever get, spices that are far too pungent for their noses, so afflicted with the smell of rotting flesh that things that smell good no longer register. He winces and turns away; he never has, and never will, get used to the smell of war.

Now, war smells like the burning logs, the ones he stares at and wonders what he is doing here. The smoke hits him squarely in the face, thick and foggy, and for a moment, the smell takes him back to his childhood. But, then it vanishes, and war once more smells like something ugly and awful, overpowering and pungent. War is pungent and smelly and disgusting, cigar smoke that these men smoke. [They’re already going to die, why not just speed up the process a bit?] Chief swallows, a little roughly, albeit, as the smell of war, once again, wafts into his nose. War smells like salt, like tears and ink and blood and gunpowder and burning bodies and indescribable horrors. But war also smells like clean, fresh soap found in the hair of a young man whose eyes contained the whole world and then some. Chief smells it as he hugs Steve, and it is the first piece of retribution he has allowed himself in a long time.

In the end, war smells like a goddess with dirt underneath her fingernails, stars trapped in her eyes, silver at her fingertips. Diana smells like war, sweat and dirt running down her body, golden liquid that makes it way down her body that smells of something else, like jasmine and lavender and gunpowder and metal. In the end, Chief knows that the smell of war is not one distinctive thing, but a complex, mixed thing, like the goddess, like humanity themselves. Gunpowder seems to stain his nose, but now, now he only allows himself to smell the good things, like the scent of flowers. Even the flowers that line the countless graves. [And if he happens to think that the flowers he lays down at Steve’s grave are especially pungent, then, they must be for a reason.]

 _ **v.**_   _ **steve**_

War feels smooth and cold, metal and glass rubbing against his fingertips as he brushes them over his father’s watch. It feels almost clinical, in a way. He has always been fascinated by his father’s watch, and has always been fascinated by his father, the hero, the soldier. All he wants to do is to be able to live up to this great man. War feels itchy, stifling. He squirms in his uniform, the brass buckles that keeping feeling cold against his fingers clicking. The pressed uniform is scratchy and uncomfortable, but he’ll do what it take for his country. War feels cold, the metal grip of his gun heavy and unfamiliar on his waist. Steve grips his tightly, so tightly his knuckles turns white and his hands starts to hurt. But he needs something, anything to ground him, to tie him back to reality.

War feels wet. Bright red blood spurts over his fingers as he sinks the knife into his opponent, and falls back, choking just a little bit as the other man falls, falls to his knees and drops to the ground. And Steve stares at the wet liquid, clenches his hands into fists and feels the blood smearing, feels it crack as it dries, and he is still there, still staring at the body of the man. And he crawls forward, touches his hands [which are now dried with the blood, so much blood] do his neck, and he is cold. Cold in death, pale with the loss of blood, and all Steve wants to do is die alongside this man, in this moment, because he can’t remember what the hell he was fighting for. War is wet, as he crashes into the ocean, and he can’t help but be glad that if at least he was to die, he could prevent the death of countless others.

War feels sticky, something he can never wash off his fingers. He stares down at his hands, hands that prevented a goddess from saving a village and he feels that hatred rise up in his once more. The ashes of Veld mixes with his tears and sticks to his hands and he leans down, as he accepts his fate. The ashes seem to feel sticky, and war feels sticky, like a paste within his hands. Steve cannot, he will not accept this anymore. He’d always loved the idea of saving his country. Of saving people who needed it. [But how can he call himself a soldier when fighting for his country means condemning innocent lives?] War feels sticky as tears run down his cheeks, but he’s made up his mind. He was such a naive thing, years and years and years ago. War is the exact opposite of clinical, so dirty that in fact he knows it has damaged his soul permanently.

War, [he never thought he’d say this] but war feels warm. Not like Diana, her warmth is like the sun on his skin, but war feels warm like the fire he had been talking about. He lays a hand on the panel of the plane, feels the engine heat up and nearly scorch his skin as he flies away, and for a moment, he laughs triumphantly, laughs because finally, finally he has done something in his life that means something. He has done something in his life that is good and pure. He closes his eyes once. War still feels warm, and he no longer feels his clock as cold and unfeeling. He no longer associates his clock with war, because his clock is now with Diana, and she is war and so much more. He pulls the triggers, and as the plane explodes and the warmth of war rushes over his skin, he allows himself one last memory of feel. [Smooth skin against callused fingers, soft lips against rough ones, and a grip tight and powerful, reassuring and cosmic. She had the world painted on her skin.]

_**+i. diana** _

War is, or at least had been, once upon a time, a god with ichor splattered armor and crimson blood running down his veins. War had been a god with anger knotted into his features and lies spilling from his lips, power flooding from his fingertips and death hanging over his shoulder like a tortured figure. War had been a god with a tendency to murder and a fascination with mankind. War had always been like this to her, a defeatable thing, something she could vanquish. Then, they would realize what they were. They would realize what good people they could once become again. War was something that could always be vanquished. They just needed someone who was able to do it.

War is no longer a god. War is a sort of intangible darkness, one that lives in the heart of men and women and pollutes then. War is a horrible atrocity, one that poisons and sickens and corrupts and tortures and destroys. She knows there are other heroes in the world, but she is so old, and so very very tired, and yet it feels like she has only realized one thing; evil cannot be defeated, as it lives in the heart of humankind. She sometimes looks at her friends and wonders how she can be so young [so very very young] because compared to her, they seem infinitely more wise. And yet she sees war trapped in their eyes. That darkness that lives in the hearts of all in theirs.

War is not just a darkness. It is dead children and scarred faces, it is burnt ashes and tasteless tea, it is everything and nothing all at the same time, and she is not prepared to handle it in the way he is. There is something so interesting, however, about humanity, that she does not understand. The feelings that destroy and warp, there was a time when she did not understand how they could keep feeling and loving after they had been so torn apart. It fascinates her. She is shocked by mankind. War is terrible and brutal and yet they continue it again and again. [Humanity will never learn its lesson.]

War is undefinable, something she did not know. She does not know much, she realises, after she meets him. She had stories and songs and tales dedicated to her, calling her a goddess and a demigod and a mythic legend. And all she wants to do is laugh. Because yes, she may be the child of a god, but there is something so human about her. Something so mortal, fleeting. Something, she thinks, like war. [If there was a single person in this world who was a god, it was the man with blue eyes and hair like flaxseed, the one who didn't show her the stars but showed her the world, the one who opened her eyes to war and humankind.]


End file.
